


monkswood

by Beyond_the_Grace



Series: kindness blooms [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Good Slytherins, Newspapers, Nonbinary Character, intentionally lowercase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28834302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beyond_the_Grace/pseuds/Beyond_the_Grace
Summary: extracts from the articles of the anonymous author
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley
Series: kindness blooms [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773583
Comments: 5
Kudos: 82





	monkswood

**Author's Note:**

> this is shorter but also uni just started up again and i am swamped rn, so enjoy. also there is minor (very minor) mcgonagall and molly weasley bashing but it is more that they trust dumbledore than that they are bad people.

_**the greater good? dumbledore's worrying rhetoric** _

_**many of us, dear readers, studied under the tutorage of albus dumbledore whether as the head of hogwarts or as professor of transfiguration. we have been taught under a man whose crystal clear reputation is unusual for a man of such political regard but is all as it seems?** _  
_**when my child was off studying at hogwarts i found myself with more free time than what i had been expecting. the last time i didn't have a child to care for we had been in the middle of a war and prior to this i had been at school myself. so i began to consider who was teaching my child and what effect that would have on them.** _  
_**what i found was unexpected.** _  
_**the greater good was a justification used often in the war. the words had struck me as odd even at the time, what can be done with the excuse of those words? what had been done under those words? the answer was worse than i had thought. grindlewald's own political ideals had been full of the exact same ideas.** _  
_**a coincidence that i had not expected to come across. of all the people who would use the ideas of grindlewald his defeater had not been on the list and so i had sought an audience with the old attempted-dictator.** _  
_**i traveled to the continent and to the prison where he was kept to ask why. why did the esteemed headmaster share a view with such a monster?** _

* * *

molly threw down the paper in disgust. the headmaster had done so much for their family and this anonymous upstart was starting to write an empty expose based on nothing but a turn of phrase that wasn't even that uncommon. her family had always been loyal to dumbledore and she refused to read such utter nonsense about the man. comparing him to grindlewald, honestly the thing people did for a penny or two.

"what's wrong mol?" arthur asked, placing a cup of tea in front of her.

"the prophet. some anonymous upstart is implying all sorts of horrible things about dumbledore." molly snarled.

"it'll be okay, there's always a someone trying to get him in trouble. it's probably just some ex-deatheater trying to discredit our side."

"it's just sad how they're always tearing into innocent people like that. i mean who's next? the boy-who-lived?"

* * *

_**slytherin slander: the story of a child** _

_**imagine this: you are eleven years old going away from home for the first time. you know all about the school houses and the reputations of all of them but here you are on the stool and you decide to let the house do its job. or you don't, maybe your whole family is in one house and that is where you know you will spend the next seven years. the hat calls out slytherin. you are eleven and three quarters of the school boos and jeers as you take your place.** _

_**you are not evil. you are not prejudice. you are an eleven year old child being booed by some who are even adults and you are scared.** _

_**from then on the muggleborns decide you hate them, that because everyone else says so you must. the other pureblood and halfbloods decide the green in your tie means evil. they do not think of merlin but rather of the tradition your tie represents. so you are alienated by the society that you were promised would accept you. maybe your parents even agree.** _

_**this is a reality for our children.** _

_**and it is the place of our educators to stop this, to stop our children from being pushed into the arms of bigotry. i watched my friends be pushed away from the light by those who preached the divinity of the glow. those who had never believed that muggleborns were lesser took the mark because the only ones who'd ever accepted them had believed in it. some of us even resisted.** _

_**in my sixth year i went to dumbledore asking for help.** _

_**i begged him to help me.** _

_**he told me that i had nothing for him, that he would not help because he had no insurance I was not a spy...** _

* * *

alex white wiped they're eyes free from the tears. they didn't often read the papers but they were mystified by the anonymous writer. the prophet had seemed like a useless rag for years, posting only gossip and government propaganda but this writer was different. they were touched by the story though. alex had been in hufflepuff and mostly kept to themsleves but after school had worked with slytherins who had all been perfectly decent. the potions industry did not have quite the same level of discrimination as the rest of the wizarding world seemed to, ignoring whoever worked at hogwarts. 

"the article huh?" alex turned to see their girlfriend standing in the doorway. alex nodded tearfully and reached a hand out towards marty. "sucks, but at least someone is telling the truth about it all. hopefully things may start to change."

"h-how... how was it? f-for you?"

"school sucked. i got through it but i'm not gonna say it was easy." marty shrugged. "i was lucky really."

* * *

_**why was a headteacher the head of the resistance group?** _

* * *

mrs fitzgerald nodded in agreement. a question she had long wondered about.

* * *

_**why was the ministry so easily dismissed?** _

* * *

fudge shook his head and started drafting a letter to the prophet, it was about time someone else got the blame.

* * *

_**how many secrets does the headmaster keep?** _

* * *

mcgonagall shook her head in disgust, she dreaded to think which of her ex-students was writing such trash.

* * *

_**how many children were failed by the man who was supposed to teach them?** _

* * *

silas nott scoffed. what kind of sissy shit was this? who from the honorable house of slytherin couldn't take some basic hazing or a little criticism?

* * *

_**why have so many children been endangered whilst at hogwarts in the past three years?** _

* * *

madame bones ripped out the article and placed it in a box hidden in her desk. the more articles that crossed the paper the more leads she had. she was going to bury so many of these idiots to their necks in charges. her family had died and not enough people had paid.


End file.
